I have been thinking about who might be able to do the training part of this and what they need to teach us. Honestly I am not even convinced we need training as it really is so easy to use. What are your thoughts?
I guess part of it depends on where we want to host our wiki, etc...and I have no clue about any of that. Can we just use something like wikispaces.com for actual project...or do we need to "create" something of our own? -- MK
I think we can use any of the free ones available - wet paint, wikispaces, pbwiki. The board has purchased a web content management program called Ektron which apparantly can do wikis but I would rather stay away from that. We could have a look at the free offerings and see if they do different things. Right now I am having trouble changing my font to Arial, black, it just changed your font Mary-Kay! Sorry
--MC
I was just poking around through wikispaces and I was reading about their "Private Label" wikis. However, there seems to be a charge for this level of service...even for K-12 schools/organizations...and I'm not sure what that would offer that this version does not. More exploring ahead...
As for font changes, I've had success when I typed all the text, highlighted it, and then made the switch. -- MK
re: training - I agree that this might be best as something we self-teach, but it would be nice to spend some time together with computers to become more proficient at working with wikis. I personally am completely unexperienced in this area, but so far feel confident it's something we can all figure out. (Beth)
I think we are all such beginners at this that I would really feel comfortable with an "expert" to give us some guidance to possibly avoid some costly/time consuming mistakes. (Suzee)
When we submitted our proposal, we had allocated a significant chunk of money for expert training. Given what I've seen of the procedure to access our money, I don't think it will be easy to redirect those funds to another portion of our project. I expect that, by cancelling the "expert", we are likely saying good-bye to that portion of the grant. If an expert falls within the budget we proposed, I'd like to go forward with our original plans and participate in some training. Eventually, we will all need to become trainers ourselves and perhaps by participating in a training session, we will learn what to do and what not to do. -- MK
Sounds good to me. Michelle, did you have any "experts" in mind? - STK
Here are a few names to consider:
Jim Hewitt (OISE) Jim's Website
Clare Brett (OISE) Clare's Website
Quentin D'Souza (Toronto DSB) Quentin's site
Anita Brooks-Kirkland (Waterloo DSB)
If you have some time, there's a lot of interesting reading at one of Mader's websites that discusses wiki patterns . What I've been busy browsing are his ideas about features/components/trends that spur and those that hinder wiki adoption. Maybe this book is one we should purchase for this project's professional library???
I guess part of it depends on where we want to host our wiki, etc...and I have no clue about any of that. Can we just use something like wikispaces.com for actual project...or do we need to "create" something of our own? -- MK
I think we can use any of the free ones available - wet paint, wikispaces, pbwiki. The board has purchased a web content management program called Ektron which apparantly can do wikis but I would rather stay away from that. We could have a look at the free offerings and see if they do different things. Right now I am having trouble changing my font to Arial, black, it just changed your font Mary-Kay! Sorry
--MC
I was just poking around through wikispaces and I was reading about their "Private Label" wikis. However, there seems to be a charge for this level of service...even for K-12 schools/organizations...and I'm not sure what that would offer that this version does not. More exploring ahead...
As for font changes, I've had success when I typed all the text, highlighted it, and then made the switch. -- MK
re: training - I agree that this might be best as something we self-teach, but it would be nice to spend some time together with computers to become more proficient at working with wikis. I personally am completely unexperienced in this area, but so far feel confident it's something we can all figure out. (Beth)
I think we are all such beginners at this that I would really feel comfortable with an "expert" to give us some guidance to possibly avoid some costly/time consuming mistakes. (Suzee)
When we submitted our proposal, we had allocated a significant chunk of money for expert training. Given what I've seen of the procedure to access our money, I don't think it will be easy to redirect those funds to another portion of our project. I expect that, by cancelling the "expert", we are likely saying good-bye to that portion of the grant. If an expert falls within the budget we proposed, I'd like to go forward with our original plans and participate in some training. Eventually, we will all need to become trainers ourselves and perhaps by participating in a training session, we will learn what to do and what not to do. -- MK
Sounds good to me. Michelle, did you have any "experts" in mind? - STK
Here are a few names to consider:
Jim Hewitt (OISE) Jim's Website
Clare Brett (OISE) Clare's Website
Quentin D'Souza (Toronto DSB) Quentin's site
Anita Brooks-Kirkland (Waterloo DSB)
If you have some time, there's a lot of interesting reading at one of Mader's websites that discusses wiki patterns . What I've been busy browsing are his ideas about features/components/trends that spur and those that hinder wiki adoption. Maybe this book is one we should purchase for this project's professional library???